Alganon

This is just a follow-up to my post in the forum. Seeing as there are now some news outlets[mmofallout.com] picking up on my latest advisory, I figured I should issue another official statement - I guess.

The thing with MMO games is that you can't just turn off the switch, move it, then plug it all back in. Plus, with Alganon, there are other things that need to be sorted out.

I used gamigo (in my forum post) for a specific reason because it's the latest such acquisition (they bought Trion Worlds - who were insolvent - via an assignment for the benefit of creditors deal) whereby everything remains "in place" and it's business as usual. There's basically nothing to transfer, transition etc.

In the case of Alganon, aside from the fact that it was never deployed outside of the US, was never localized, doesn't support cloud servers etc, it's a massive undertaking to transition. I bought it from the investors because, like all my games, my goal is to bring it back online and keep it going until the wheels come off because it can pay for itself in the long term.

The biggest challenge is that you can't just launch an MMO game these days. It's a lot more challenging, astoundingly costly, and without marketing you're just asking for trouble while delaying the inevitable. It's why I chose not to relaunch it myself; but instead seek out international partners so that it can be re-launched in key territories, marketed appropriately etc - and with much fanfare. And through all that, we can also do some cosmetic revisions over time because some of the visual assets do need some minor updating.

Being a 100% completed game (we finished it back in 2011 after I took it over in 2010; and I also funded a large expansion pack, got it on Steam etc few years later) that is basically a hands-off SaaS model, it's not like I have a massive overheard to operate and run it. I could bring it online in a matter of days if I wanted to; but there is no rush or incentive to do so. Especially since there are lots of moving parts involved with the process. Not to mention the fact that it was still running on legacy bare-metal Dell hardware (datacenter co-lo) that was procured back in 2006 (!!) - long before my involvement in the project.

FYI. At the time I took it offline, the game had about 250K unique accounts, and a pretty decent DAU/MAU. Sure it wasn't lighting up charts, bank accounts or anything, but it was doing OK - considering that it was at the stage where we barely touched it, except to reboot the master/auth servers once in awhile. But, like SoTA and similar games, it had a dedicated user base.

And also, we didn't have enough of an involvement in terms of team community engagement due to lack of resources (mostly funding; since I don't have the luxury of spending other peoples money) to go "big". Most of the guys who worked on it, having finished their work, have since moved on to other things, while others work on as-needed contract basis.

We're undergoing server maintenance & migration. The servers will be off-line until completed.

We will post an update soon.

To prevent new people from buying the game and being unable to connect, we will be disabling the store page temporarily.

UPDATE: 01/02/2018

Nothing new to report for now. Will keep you all posted.

UPDATE: 01/16/2018

It's a F2P game. The store page is no longer up. Like all other MMO games that were sunset, if we were doing that, we would say so.

It WILL be back as soon as we are done with the on-going process. It's not as simple as unplugging a machine, moving it, then plugging it back in and turning on the power.

The biggest issue is that most of the servers are old (going back to 2006), some were dead, need maintenance, running older versions of Windows Server etc. Then there's inventory.

There are other business related issues which are also a part of this on-going process. e.g. though not announced yet, my company 3000AD which took over and has been operating the game since 2010, now owns QOL as well as the game, having bought out the majority investors of Quest Online. The ink on the deal has barely dried.

Alganon will be back with new servers at a new datacenter where 3000AD hosts its titles, instead of where QOL has hosted it since 2006. And we're also planning on releasing in other territories, as well as doing some marketing, and possibly an RTS game similar to what we did with our multi-platform game, Line Of Defense Tactics.

The game was never as popular as we wanted, but we thank you all the fans who have been playing it these past years, as you are the reason that it was never shutdown in the first place due to low population.

We are working on various reported issues[www.alganon.com], and will be releasing periodic patches as things progress, rather than waiting to do one big patch.

So today's minor release includes the following. Full changelog[www.myalganon.com].

Fireball's splash damage now correctly hits nearby enemies

An attack power stacking exploit with the Warden's Ferocity skill has been fixed

In certain situations battle damage was applied to equipped gear when dying from a fall. This now applies the correct PvE damage

Shorax in Warfiend Karr no longer heals to full when taking damage. Players will still find this fight a challenge but without the near endless boss heals

SERVER ISSUES

Yes - we're well aware of various server issues and we're working on them. This includes progressive lag, as well as occasional crashes resulting in disconnects. We do have the server on auto-restart rotation atm, so expect disruptions from time to time, as we work through this.